Identify what is most important )0( Eliminate everything elseThe idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world. Dr. Paul FarmerThe suffering of others is not alleviated when no one knows about it.There is no one right way to live. Daniel QuinnIshmaelThe only thing that you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right sort of people.We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. Kurt Vonnegut

Thursday, February 27, 2014

job

The one I turned down.

On Monday, as I wrote earlier, I received a phone message from the director of that Program and shelter. She said that she hoped I was still considering working there and that you knew I did not want to work full time there, but that she really wanted to get me on board there and would take even a single day each week, if I would agree to that.

I have not been able to talk to her since then, just lots of messages from both of us, and when I finally made contact yesterday with the manager of the advocates and our conversation was all "this is a nice opportunity" from me, and all "it is so great to have you with us" from her. We left it that I would just stop in this week or next week and talk to the director.

Whilst hanging out, making rubber band bracelets and washing stuff at the laundromat I received four calls from the shelter people. Four. By the third one B was telling me what my schedule would be for training and the days I would be working next week. It appears that someone decided that I was hired and the employment paperwork is ready and waiting for me.

I am sort of glad, sort of rattled and more than a little confused. However, I begin working there Monday afternoon, along with the other person they hired. I am wondering if she has had the same experience of being asked to think about working there and finding herself with a schedule. Kind of funny. Kind of touching and nice, too, because hesitation about me joining the staff seems to be non-existent. Next week should be interesting.

So far, at least for March, my schedule is alternate weekends, Saturday 12 hours, and Sunday 8 hours, second shift. If they keep me at that, it would be perfect because I would still have every other weekend for family stuff and napping.

This is going to be a tiny paycheck, non-profit agency and all that, but it is a paycheck. And, since it is doing exactly the work I want, trained and yearned to do, the whole thing is perfect. I am going to pay attention to what happens during the training and make sure that I communicate clearly and without any possibility of misunderstanding or misinterpretation that I really do not want more than a single day each week. Alternate weekends is the perfect part. No slippery-slope of increased hours or different days.

Lordy. I hope this works out well, because I want to work there.

Lots of good things happened this week, all spewing out since my big deal with my spiritual adviser last Thursday.

I got a lot of things done here at home. Man, it never gets old saying or writing home. Yeah.
I seem to have a new, part-time job.
Work is going well in that I am booked three weeks in advance, but I am still unable to find anyone who will volunteer to help out so that we can add another day of service.
Work is providing me with a parking lot card. That will save me close to $10.00 as week in parking meter costs.
I was asked to take over a DV support group meeting.
The agency that offered to let me give art and crafting opportunities, checked back with me to make sure that I still wanted to do it. It may have some budget available, too.
The lump in my face turned out to be a cyst on my parotid/salivary gland, probably from being ill for so long. Nothing to fret about. I just have to get healthier and the pain will magically go away.
I managed, after months of not making any progress, to clear up the messy mess my business had become. All is done, the business is officially closed and I do not owe the state any money.
A medium-sized binder clip is the perfect size to hold a blanket around your shoulders so that you can type and stay warm.

The best part of the week is the time I will be spending with the boys whilst I shoo their parents out to have an overnight celebration of their anniversary. The boys call it a sleepover, which I guess it is. We are going to have so much fun. I will be taking my bracelet loom and we will make all kinds of stuff. We will have lots of mac & cheese, many cheap hot dogs with squishy white bread buns. We will cook spaghetti and cut up a bunch of fruit and make pudding.

Tomorrow in drop-in Lab again and it looks to be a pretty full house. The big surprise will be that all of them have to create a job agent, with at least one on-line job aggregator site. It is pretty easy and it will greatly enhance their job searching. I set up ten samples on Wednesday and am thinking that I will created a tutorial after tomorrow and I learn what needs to be in it.

What else. I guess that it is nice to not have anything about which to complain or moan and groan. There was a time, last year, when I worried about coming to a point where I had no more problems to complain about. I shared that and someone called me to task about why I thought that other people never had problems of one kind or another. I did not defend myself back, but the focus of what I shared back then is that I was moving closer, all the time, to a place in my life where the traumatic crap would not be the determining stresser(s) in my life.

Life is so good. I am leaving one of the support groups I attend; I no longer need it, but, like anything, I can go back if I need to do so. I am coming to the close of my therapy sessions. My therapist has not said anything, but I know that it is near to time. Maybe I am wrong and I will need this stuff for longer, but maybe not. Another thing that I can go back to if needed.

Maybe horrible is a relative term for me these days. Ah. Nope, it still means horrible, and the truth is that horrible and rotten and misbegotten stuff will continue to happen. No one is immune.

I want to notice the crappy stuff. It means that I am aware and quite alive in this new-now life. Beyond the normal kind of worrying, I am sort of anticipating new opportunities to make the life I want, although it is my wish that those things should not be too horrible.

I am busy, and busily working on understanding and incorporating all of the new stuff into whatever it is supposed to be. I am excited and energized and it is too much to sort out into sharing most of the time.

It is complicated by my need to now share the intimate details of where my work has moved. Confidentiality has never been a part of what I share here, but it is an essential and quirky master now that I am working with more sensitive and vulnerable people.

I will find balance between what I need to write and what I need to keep to myself. It is an interesting circumstance that is connected, in a strange, although informative way, to that other life where secrets were more about trying to stay alive.

Privacy and confidentiality now exist as a supportive and essential part of the work and service I offer to other people.

About Me

I am 66 years old, mother, grandmother, friend, all the rest. Artist and domestic abuse survivor, married 45 years, now on my own, with CoolCat, just making a life for ourselves. I am more than that - suspect I might be -sincerely hope I am. This is my journey to find who I really could be. This blog is the part of that journey that heralds my renewed connections with the world and people I love, even if we have never met.